There’s an old episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when one character, a former spy, hears the fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” for the first time. He disagrees with the conventional moral of the story. “What else could it be?” the teller asks him. “That you should never tell the same lie twice.”

Even as we approach the 20th anniversary of Alfa’s pullout from the U.S. market—and thus the 19th anniversary of promises that the brand would return soon—the mere suggestion of exciting new products and American sales is enough to rally a mob of people. An Automotive News story that Fiat is considering a new rear-wheel-drive platform for Alfa, Chrysler, and Dodge was no different, and what started as some off-the-record comments to a credible reporter morphed from his reasonable observation that Alfa was mulling the idea to “Alfa is Going 100% Rear-Wheel Drive in 2015″ faster than the current lineup depreciates.

Although the story aligned with what we were told by Alfa execs some months ago, common sense and tradition make it seem unlikely that Alfa actually will wind up with a lineup of rear-wheel-drive sedans and wagons. New platforms and clean-sheet models cost billions of dollars, you see, and Fiat’s willingness to invest in Alfa over the past decade has been, well, what’s the Italian word for “virtually nonexistent”? Hiding in plain sight, though, there’s a tremendously important revelation in this rumor. If Alfa is still thinking about going with rear-wheel drive for the mid-size Giulia sedan, and is searching for a platform that would underpin both that car and a 5-series–sized flagship, it means that real development hasn’t even started on either car yet.

Bear in mind that back in September 2011, when Alfa CEO Harald Wester presented the product map you see above, the Giulia was already late. At that point, it had been 18 months since Wester’s boss Sergio Marchionne rejected the first styling proposal for the Giulia, and by September 2011, Marchionne had nixed two more.

Beyond the Giulia and hypothetical big rear-drive sedan, what remains of that product map is a sorry scene. A five-door version of the MiTo—a valuable offering as Europeans increasingly move away from three-door hatchbacks—has essentially been nixed. A crossover was due to arrive this year, and obviously did not, and we’ve spied nary a prototype testing on the road. Only the very-limited-production 4C and the Mazda-developed Duetto/Spider roadster stand a chance of launching on schedule.